Gordons Personal View of Personal Computing before the
Gordon’s Personal View of Personal Computing: before the PC Vintage Computer Society 27 September 1998 Gordon Bell gbell@microsoft. com http: //www. research. microsoft. com/~gbell
Apple II
First personal computer
Micral
In the beginning: Manchester “Baby” ran the first program 22 June 1948
English Electric Deuce Console 1955
Whirlwind c 1953 … 1 st generation, 16 -bit word; 4 KB memory; 8 K drum Whirlwind begot TX-O/TX-2 begot DEC PDP-1 Real time, first compiler, ECAD, text editor
Whirlwind console, drum, 1 Kw core
SAGE Control Room c 1962. Whirlwind used for first experiments.
SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) Operator Console
TX-0 Console c 1959… one of the first transistorized personal computers Speech, handwriting recognition, neuro data analysis, etc. Interactive editors, debuggers, etc.
MIT Speech group with TX-0, c 1959.
DEC Computer before PDP-11 1957 1961 1963
DEC PDP-1 c 1961
Wes Clark & LINC c 1962: Personal computers for bio-medical research
PDP-5 c 1964: PDP-8 predecessor Process control, real time experiments. Fortran in 4 K, 12 bit words
Gbell with LINC and PDP-8 c 1965
PDP-8: first mini First OEM computer. OS/8 (from timesharing) begot RT-11 begot CPM
PDP-8 Modules
PDP-8/E
PDP-8 and Linc Family Tree
PDP-8 12 bit word price (t)
PDP-8 prices (t)
Timesharing: given everyone their own, low cost, personal computer
PDP-6 c 1965 : First commercial time shared computer. Gbell & Alan Kotok
PDP-6 Development team c 1965
PDP-6/10/ DECsystem 10/20 family tree
There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. Ken Olsen President, Chairman and founder of Digital, 1977
Equating yourself to the average “user/buyer” is risky. . . unless you’re an average user.
Why didn’t Digital lead personal computers? That’s another talk…
Minis and timesharing contributions 4 Space. War demonstrated the importance of interactive graphics 4 Editors, calculators, interactive debuggers, interpreters were in use 4 Mail and chat used timesharing 4 Minis established embedded computers
- Slides: 32